I'm not a big fan of this technique so I'll let others comment on that and I'll stick to the technical aspects:

Great capture of the action - good positioning and angle so captured both key players.

But the shots all look underexposed to me - not sure if there was something in uncropped shots that fooled the metering but the faces are still pretty dark. IMO - i'd rather seen blown highlights on the uniform trim and be able to make out the faces - faces are always more interesting than uniforms.

On the exposure... Hummm... I guess I can see it... I know I lean the other
way. It's so easy to blow out on a ball field atnoon on a sunny day. And the hats... Always a shadow in the afternoon...I shot raw so I can tweak it. Errr... I mean
them... Yikes! Four tweaks and a recompose... I guess I'll tweak the final composition.

I wonder what a photo contest judge thinks of these things? I'd hate to have a
Judge look at it and say. "I hate these things!" Maybe I'm one of the few that
likes 'em.